I opened my mouth and closed it before trying again. “Maybe you should start at the beginning.” I was starting to think he might not be crazy; crazy people don't usually bother to question their own sanity. “Has it always been this way? When did you start seeing her?” Maybe he'd suffered some kind of traumatic brain injury or something. That might explain why he could see only one ghost… or why he thought he might be hallucinating.
“What's the point?” He laughed. “You're going to help me? You came to
“Just… start talking,” I persisted. If there was ever anyone who could have been helped by the Order and their tactics, it would have been this guy. But he'd clearly been afraid of them tracking him down, even running from me when he'd thought I was one of them. So my curiosity was going to get the better of me on this one. And who knew, maybe I could help him. He looked like he needed it.
He sagged back in his chair. “I don't… Everything was fine until Erin died.”
“You knew her before, then?”
He looked as if I'd asked the stupidest question possible. “She's my sister. My twin?”
“Oh,” I said. I never would have guessed that. Maybe some resemblance around the eyes. Maybe. Her hair was a darker red and not nearly as wild as his. The features that made her look pretty and petite kind of gave him a happy-gnome appearance.
“My fraternal twin, obviously,” he said, sounding huffy.
“You're twins and your parents named you Malachi and Erin?” I asked in disbelief. He'd definitely gotten the short end of the stick there.
“My real name is Edmund,” he said stiffly.
I grimaced. Not much better than Malachi. I thought about apologizing but figured it would only make things worse, so I stayed quiet and waited for him to continue.
“Erin had an accident at school. When we were freshmen in college.” He looked down at his hands. “When they called me to the hospital after she fell, she was already… gone. I was standing there, staring at this empty body that used to be my sister, trying to figure out how I was going to do this. You know, life. How I was going to be alone, you know? For the first time ever.” He rubbed his eyes as if the image was burned onto the back of his eyelids and he wanted to remove it.
He forced a laugh and opened his eyes. “When I was seven and joined the Cub Scouts, Erin would scream and cry until she made herself sick while I was gone at meetings. Eventually, it was easier not to go.”
That sounded a little unhealthy, actually.
“In the summers, our grandparents wanted us to visit for a week separately, part of that whole giving-twins-individual-attention thing.” He lifted his shoulders in a defeated manner. “She pulled the same crap, carrying on and screaming until they brought her home. After that, we always went together.”
Scratch that. A lot unhealthy.
“Erin was always the one who decided everything. What clubs we should join, who we should take to the prom, where we should sit at lunch. It was just easier that way. She's three minutes older than me. She always knew what we wanted. Or,” he said with heavy sigh, “what she wanted and what I'd go along with.”
He looked up at me. “It was my fault, too. She was pushy and controlling, but I let her. She was the one who faced the world, and all I had to do was follow along in her wake. I didn't have to stand up for myself, didn't have to fight.”
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. That sounded a little too familiar, maybe.
“I didn't know what to do when she died,” he said. “It was like losing part of me, an arm or a leg or something.” He shook his head. “I didn't know how to function without her. I needed her, so I wished for her to come back. Harder than I've ever wished for anything. I was desperate.”
I leaned forward in my chair, suddenly aware of where this story was headed.
He sighed heavily. “And then she just showed up… and started talking. Yelling, actually,” he amended. “Even after my parents got to the hospital, I was still the only one who could hear her. It freaked me out at first. I tried to ignore it — her — but she saw me, knew I was looking at her.” He shrugged helplessly. “After that, she never left. The doctors said it was grief or shock or depression. Then my parents got involved and tried to have me committed.”
Oh, I knew that feeling. I thought I'd had it hard, but to live an otherwise normal life for eighteen years and then to start seeing your dead sister everywhere… that was worse. What I could do was difficult, but at least it had the potential to be beneficial. What Malachi/Edmund had going on was torture.
Although I'd never heard of anyone developing ghost-talker abilities overnight like that. That was odd.
“Erin warned me about what my parents were planning, and we left in the middle of the night.” He lifted his shoulders heavily. “Haven't been back home since.”
“What does she want?” I was ashamed to realize I hadn't even bothered to ask her that myself, when she'd shown up at my house. Then again, she'd
